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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rgard" data-source="post: 4717228" data-attributes="member: 4157">I've done it as a player and allowed it as a DM.As a player...1.  1E - in the first campaign I played in, we all had 4-5 PCs and we usually played 2-3 of the characters in each session.  This started out as having a spell caster and a fighter or thief for each player.  Once the spell caster had used up all the spells, the player focused on playing the fighter or thief.  Most played like that, but my illusionist and magic user always drew daggers and waded in when out of spells.  This campaign was a total hack and slash campaign with little roleplaying.  We had two camps of players and used the multiple characters to ensure one player's PC didn't whack all the other players' PCs.  Of course we eventually had our PC war.2.  1E - same characters as above, but different campaign.  None of the encounters were scaled to what would be a normal 4 PC party.  We played 4-5 characters each just to stay alive.  This was a total slugfest between NPCs and PCs.For both the above campaigns there wasn't a session that went by that one of the players eventually exclaimed, "Sh^t!  I would have made my save if I had remembered..." some magic item, or something like that.3.  3E - I played two PCs in one campaign, playing both in most of the sessions.  I played a Martial Rogue/Swashbuckler/Battlesorcerer and a Ur Priest/Wizard/Mystic Theurge.  We had 2 experienced players and a bunch of players completely new to the game.  The DM asked me to play another character to try to keep the party alive long enough for the other players to learn the game without getting turned off by early PC death.  The PCs I played were versatile enough to help the party when needed and the multi-classing also ensured the new players with single class PCs eventually outshone my PCs in power.I didn't have any issues keeping the two characters separate.  It was fun in that the one was Chaotic Good and the other Neutral Evil...and were cousins as part of the back story.  Schizo city.  The Ur Priest/Wiz/MT is a sociopath, but sneaky about it.  The other character is the straight up good guy.  I find it easier to play two completely different personalities than two similar ones in that the two similar ones are harder to keep goals and outlooks separate and not let them merge into one personality.As a DM...1.  1E - DM'd some of the same PCs (not mine) as in 1 (as a player) above.  Never an issue.  I scaled the encounters to the PC strength present, though I almost had a TPK on my hands in the Hill Giant Steading (G1).  I did try to weave in more role playing for the players, but went with the flow and we all rolled lots of dice.  And much fun was had by all.2.  3E - I've let more experienced players play 2 PCs.  Again, mostly a fighter type or rogue and a spell caster.  Once the spell caster shot his wad, the player had a fighter or rogue to stay engaged.  Eventually the less experienced players would want to play 2 PCs a well.  Unless the newbie was really smart, this usually ended up in death for one of his PCs.  I will suggest (prior to the gaming session) that the player only play one PC if I think he or she can't handle keeping the personalities separate or if he or she can't keep track of what all the two characters can do.I've put a hard limit of 2 PCs (played at a single session) in 3E.  I do expect the player to keep the personalities separate and if I don't see that in game, I will tell the player to reduce the head count to 1.Overall, I think the record keeping during and between sessions is the hardest part of playing more than 1 PC at a time.  For example, 3 of us from the 1E days had a mini reunion in Ann Arbor 17 years after we had parted ways post-college.  We were recalling some of the adventures we played in and two of us had walked away from one of the last sessions thinking we each had the same items of loot.  Funny how we can remember specific details from a free-form game, 17 years after we played it.Thanks,Rich</blockquote>

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